Bret WeinsteinVerified account

Twitter purged a bunch of fake accounts about the time @EricRWeinstein posted this, so the companies that sell followers are probably working overtime to get those accounts recreated and looking legitimate.

I mean not necessarily. If you want to create the facade of legitimate accounts you have to have the bots follow someone...

He didn't say Bots. He said companies who sell followers. That is a difference in kind. Buying followers does it mean that they're active on your account, it's all for show.

You misunderstand. Bots and fake accounts can be the same. Many fake account companies create bots to follow others to look more legit. Then they sell their service to others.

You're absolutely right. Many fake accounts are also bots, but the point still stands that they have to follow some non-paying people to appear legitimate.

Not sure how widely held this belief is, but it seems to me that outside forces (Russia and potentially others) have been carefully identifying and stoking divides in the US and other countries. The IDW works against that project, and so it makes sense they’d start keeping tabs.

some amount of that is clearly happening. the internet is certainly full of useful idiots who will repeat propaganda at work, in school, at the dinner table and sow discord. any number of entities could be at work, including corporations and PACs.